Q:A few of years ago I switched my landline to Vonage, which was the cheapest alternative to AT&T that I could find at the time. But at more than $30 a month (including fees and taxes), Vonage doesn't seem like such a great deal anymore. I've seen ads for other home phone solutions that are less expensive. I'm happy with the Vonage service, but not the price. What can you recommend?

A: Vonage itself markets BasicTalk, a cheaper version of its flagship Internet phone service. Like Vonage, BasicTalk involves a small box that connects your home phone system to your Wi-Fi router. Available at Walmart, BasicTalk offers just what the name implies - basic nationwide phone service at a flat rate of $10 a month (plus taxes and fees). The service includes Caller ID, Call Waiting and voice mail.

There also are inexpensive home-phone services with similar features that use wireless networks rather than the Internet to send and receive calls. They include Walmart's Straight Talk Home Phone ($80 for the device and $15 a month for the service) and AT&T Wireless Home Phone ($100 for the device and $20 monthly).

In the really cheap department, options include MagicJack Plus, which offers service for "as little as $19.95 a year," and Ooma, which goes that one better with free service (although you must pay fees and taxes and buy the Ooma Telo device, which can be had for $130 at Best Buy). Both are Internet services.

Bottom line: If you have a high-speed Internet connection and a router, you can't go wrong with BasicTalk, and Ooma has gotten generally favorable reviews. If you don't have a fast home network, consider AT&T Wireless Home (which of course uses the AT&T wireless network), or Walmart's Straight Talk, which uses Verizon's network.

Q:Is there a low-cost or free word processing program for PCs that you could recommend for a fifth-grade student? We would prefer Microsoft Word, but it costs $110.

A: That is too much to spend, especially since there is a plethora of free word processing programs that are compatible with Microsoft Word formats (both the older .doc format and the newer .docx).

The best free stand-alone word processor (not part of an office suite), probably is AbiWord, from Abisource.com. It's been around forever, so it works like a charm, and it has all the features a fifth-grader is likely to need. The program I like best, however, is the word processor that comes with the relatively new (and free) LibreOffice (LibreOffice.org). It looks a lot like Microsoft Word 2003, which may be the best version ever, lacking as it does the annoying ribbon menus that came in with Word 2007.

Call me a bluffo traditionalist, but the only thing about word processors that bothers me is the spell-checker. Granted, it catches errors, and I'll make sure to spell-check this column, but the sad fact is that spell-checkers have turned us into a nation of bad spellers. So make sure junior doesn't use the spell-checker as a crutch.

Q:I have a Mac and would like to stream movies from Netflix from the computer to my TV. What is the least expensive and easiest way to do this?

A: You don't need a computer to stream Netflix and other Internet content to your TV. All you need is a media streaming device that brings Internet content to your TV via your wireless network.

Two of the best media streamers right now are the Roku 3 and the Apple TV, both of which are tiny, easy to use and list for about $100. As a Mac person, you could benefit from the Apple TV, which lets you stream anything playing on your Mac. But in other ways, Roku is better. The Apple TV and Roku both give you access to Netflix, Hulu Plus and other major online content providers, but the Roku has way more Internet channels, including Amazon Instant Video and Vudu, which so far are missing on the Apple TV. And some other channels offered by Roku are available on Apple TV only via AirPlay, a feature that requires the use of another Apple device (Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch).

Roku also gets points for its remote, which doesn't require a line of sight to the device, and it has a port for earphones so you can listen to anything that's playing without disturbing the rest of the family. Oh yeah, Roku lets you search for programming across multiple channels. Huzzah!

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